Call to Treason o-11

by Tom Clancy

  “I’ll wait an hour,” she said. “No more.”

  Rodgers did not answer. For all he knew, Kat Lockley would leave the room as soon as he was out of sight. Rodgers did not know whether she was truly blameless or just feigning innocence. Before heading downstairs, he stopped and pounded on Eric Stone’s door. There was no answer. He did not know where the convention manager was or what he might be planning. There was a lot Rodgers did not know. Too damn much, in fact.

  Rodgers took the stairs to the lobby. That was not a consideration for personal security. If McCaskey called, Rodgers did not want to be standing hip-to-hip with nosy USF delegates.

  The general reached the courtyard, which was encircled by tall, slender palm trees and brilliantly lit by a peach-colored sun. People were moving in all directions, and cars were stacked two deep in the sweeping entranceway. This was not the way to find Eric Stone. He went back inside to the registration desk and asked if anyone there had seen him. They said they had not. Rodgers did not believe they would have been told to lie. Stone had not come this way. He thought of checking the hotel security camera but decided that knowing where Stone had been was not going to help him right now. Rodgers had to find out where Stone was going.

  Rodgers went back outside. He looked over at the convention center. It was probably a circus by now, with conventioneers arriving for free lunch followed by the opening speeches. Mobile media vans were outside, recording the event. It might be possible to use their multiple camera feeds to try to spot Stone. Since it was all Rodgers had, he decided to give it a try.

  “General?”

  Someone was standing behind him. He turned. It was Stone. He was holding a walkie-talkie and wearing a smile. Faint but sharp-edged voices crackled from the handheld device, the cross-talk of convention workers.

  There was a move in the chaos gambit, Rodgers thought. An unexpected move that took control of the board. What Rodgers did not know was whether it was the luck of a novice or the seasoned improvisational skills of a professional.

  “I understand you were looking for me?” Stone said, smiling.

  “I was,” Rodgers said.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Rodgers looked around. “First of all, how did you know where I was?” the general asked. He was trying to spot the nearest surveillance camera or a tail.

  “General, there was nothing conspiratorial.” Stone laughed. “The desk supervisor said you went this way. I knew what you were wearing and got lucky.”

  Rodgers did not buy that. One of the hundreds of people surrounding them could have been watching him. Perhaps someone in a hotel window.

  “So what is it you wanted?” Stone pressed.

  Rodgers regarded the younger man. He looked at his posture, at his expression, at his hands. “I spoke with Detective Howell of the Metro Police in D.C.,” Rodgers informed him. “He told me he is being blackmailed by someone in your camp. I want to know who and why.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Stone said. “The detective bungled an investigation. He needed someone to blame. He picked us. Maybe someone is putting him up to it; maybe he has a personal vendetta. All I can tell you is that he is wasting our time. Now, if that is all you need to know—”

  “No, there’s more. I want to know what the endgame is.”

  “To elect a president,” Stone replied. He frowned and looked around. “Where is Kat, by the way? Did you see her?”

  “I saw her.”

  “She’s supposed to be with reporters, talking about the campaign.”

  “She’s taking some personal time,” Rodgers said. He moved closer. “Talk to me, dammit.”

  “I am.”

  “No. You’re playing. There’s smug in your smile, in your eyes, but you’re still lying to me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Tension displacement. When you’re wound tight, it has to come out somewhere. Your fingertips are white. You’re squeezing that walkie-talkie like it’s a rubber stress ball. The pressure of all those steaks, is that what it is?”

  “Yes, General. Look, I’ll have to talk to you some other time—”

  “You will talk now,” Rodgers said.

  “What you’re doing makes no sense, do you realize that?” Stone protested. “Think about it. If I were guilty of a terrible crime, would I stand here and confess to you? Do you think you’re that good a bully?”

  “I can be,” Rodgers said.

  “Security would have your face pressed to the asphalt in about ten seconds,” Stone assured him. “And I would have you incarcerated for assault, with no sad sack detective to bail you out.”

  Rodgers’s gaze sharpened. “How did you know that?”

  “What?”

  “That Howell let the McCaskeys go.”

  “I didn’t,” Stone said.

  It hit Rodgers a moment before he heard it. Voices were shouting from the walkie-talkie, inarticulate in their shrill and overlapping communiqués.

  Stone raised the unit. “This is Stone. What’s going on?”

  “Something happened,” someone said.

  “What?”

  “The admiral,” the speaker said. His voice was hesitant, uneasy. “He left the hotel from the back exit, but he never made it to the convention center.”

  “It’s only a mile!” Stone said. “Have you called the driver?” he asked as he reached for his own cell phone.

  “We did. There’s no answer. The admiral doesn’t answer his phone, either.”

  “Is security on this?”

  “They called 911 and asked for an aerial search to see if they can find the limousine.”

  “Tell security I’ll be right there,” Stone said angrily. He speed-dialed a number as he started jogging back toward the hotel.

  Rodgers followed, also running.

  “Kat, it’s Eric,” he said after a moment. “Something has happened. I need you to get downstairs and run the press.”

  The men entered the lobby. Word of a possible abduction was spreading. People had stopped whatever they were doing and were looking around, asking anyone with a Staff badge for information. Stone ignored them all as he rushed by. The men walked past the elevators to a corridor lined with shops. The rear entrance was at the end of the carpeted hallway.

  As Stone briefed Kat, Rodgers examined the feeling he had experienced just before the walkie-talkie came to life. A sense that had suddenly changed Rodgers’s perception of what he thought was beginner’s luck, a chaos gambit.

  He no longer believed that Stone was an amateur. Neither was his boss, whoever that was. Someone had profiled Rodgers. They had understood exactly how the general would act and react to everything they did. Stone knew that Rodgers would seek him out in San Diego. He knew that, after their first talk, after McCaskey’s arrest, Rodgers would tell Kat to stay out of the way for a while. Stone also knew that when he finally presented himself to Rodgers, the general would push for information.

  In short, the son of a bitch Stone had been stalling him.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Washington, D.C.

  Wednesday, 5:47 P.M.

  The sun was sinking low, and there was a chill in the air. The odor of diesel fuel wafted thinly from the aircraft at the base. It reminded Herbert of when he and his wife, Yvonne, used to be at a military airfield in some foreign land, waiting to be airlifted to or from a mission for the Company.

  The light, the smell, the taste of the air reminded him in particular of the field at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany. That was where he and Yvonne had their last meal before heading to Beirut, where she died and he lost the use of his legs. They had gone to the base commissary, grabbed a couple of sandwiches and coffees, and took a card table onto the field. It was a little too windy for candles, so they used a menorah the quartermaster had in storage. It was the best grilled cheese and coleslaw Herbert ever had. Yvonne never looked more beautiful and heroic to him. What a role model she had been. Always pushing him and herself to do a better job. S
he was convinced that whatever they did in Lebanon could help to bring peace to the region.

  It did, to the nearly three hundred U.S. troops who died in the embassy bombing. Including Yvonne.

  It was difficult for Herbert not to crash, burn, and smoulder for hours whenever that day came upon him — typically by surprise, like a mugger. It could be a song Yvonne might have been listening to on the trip over. It could be a feeling in the air, like now. Even the smell of grilled cheese took him back. All Herbert could do was swallow the awful lump, concentrate on what he was doing, and get the hell out of that bittersweet place. Yesterday’s EM explosion made the feeling even more immediate.

  Stopping bad guys usually worked. That was what Herbert was trying to do now. The problem at the moment was not just wrestling down memories of Yvonne but fighting off the desire to hurt Paul Hood. As his grandfather used to put it back in Mississippi, he wished he could “sock him in the snot box and shake loose some intelligence.” The firing of Mike Rodgers offended him like nothing else in the past quarter century. When this was over, Herbert would have to decide if he could still work with the man. The way he was feeling, maybe he and Mike should open their own version of Murder, Inc. Something like, Revenge, Inc. He even had the slogan. “You pay, then they pay.” That would give them both a chance to act out in grand style.

  For now, though, he had to find out what he could about Lucy O’Connor. Darrell had called to say that he and Maria were headed to her apartment. If she was not there — and McCaskey did not expect her to be — he needed to know where she could have gone.

  “There is one thing about her you should know,” Herbert told him.

  “What is that?” McCaskey asked.

  “She was busted while she was a student at Carnegie-Mellon,” Herbert informed him.

  “For what?”

  “Riding the horse,” Herbert said.

  “Lucy was a heroin addict?”

  “That’s what the Pittsburgh PD records say,” Herbert said. “Did six months in the pokey, where she went through rehab.”

  “Impossible. That would have showed up on her background check,” McCaskey said. “She never would have been allowed near Congress.”

  “Unless someone had the file buried and told her one day there would be payback,” Herbert said. “A real-life Don Corleone.”

  “Orr or Link,” McCaskey said. “So how did you find the record?”

  “I didn’t,” Herbert said. “Routine check of her college years turned up a bust at the frat house where Lucy lived. Her name wasn’t mentioned. I called one of the kids who did time. She said, hell, yeah, Lucy was with her in the clink.”

  “She would have known how to give the injections,” McCaskey said. “That’s one more reason to believe she is the killer.”

  “Most likely. You’re an aspiring journalist who screwed up, someone rescues you, gives you all kinds of access — there are people who would kill to protect that,” Herbert said. “There are people who have killed for less.”

  “True, though I’m not going to sign on to that until I talk to the woman,” McCaskey said.

  “I agree.”

  “Speaking of which, if we don’t find her at home, you have any suggestions where we should try next?” McCaskey asked.

  “I sent Stephen Viens over to the NRO,” Herbert said. “He’s got an hour on the Auto-Search program in the Domestic Surveillance Platform.”

  The DSP was a new Homeland Security satellite. It was located in a geostationary orbit and kept pointed on the metro D.C. area. It had the ability to pinpoint cars by shape, weight, and the specific configuration of the dashboard electronics. Once spotted, the onboard camera could zoom in to read the license number. If suspicious individuals were seen getting into a particular vehicle or renting a specific car, the DSP could find and track them with relative ease.

  “How did Viens swing time on that?” McCaskey asked. “The DSP is Homeland’s baby.”

  “All I know is that Paul made a call,” Herbert told him. “He got us the hour.”

  “Impressive,” McCaskey said.

  “I guess someone figured they owed us one or else felt sorry for us,” Herbert said. “Anyway, Ms. O’Connor drives a red Mustang convertible. If she is on the road, we will find her.”

  As Herbert was talking with McCaskey, he got an instant message on his borrowed laptop.

  Viens1: We have your car. It is just crossing the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge headed west.

  “Darrell, we’ve got your perp,” Herbert said. “She’s on 95 crossing the river. She could be headed to the airport.” The irony of Lucy O’Connor being on a bridge named W. Wilson was not lost on him.

  “We’re on 395 east now,” McCaskey said. “I’ll turn and go for an intercept. Can Viens stay with her?”

  Herbert forwarded the question to Viens, who wrote back that the NRO’s Homeland Security liaison, Lauren Tartags, said he could take the time, barring a crisis. Herbert told Viens to thank Ms. Tartags for her generosity. Op-Center’s imaging expert wrote back:

  Viens1: It’s not kindness. She says she has no choice.

  That was odd, but Herbert did not worry about it now. The intelligence chief told McCaskey to remain on the line. He said he would forward any new information immediately.

  Through the open line Herbert could hear McCaskey and his wife conferring. The mutual respect he heard in the exchange made him smile. Maria was a tough, swashbuckling, headstrong, old-school law officer. She was the kind of cop who did not knock on doors but kicked them in. She was a perfect counterbalance to the more meticulous McCaskey.

  He was happy for them. And he envied them.

  Despite receiving data from the new satellite, Herbert felt as if he were back in the technological Stone Age. Before the electromagnetic blast, he would have been sitting in his office looking at the images being forwarded directly from the DSP. He could do that in the Tank, but that would mean hanging with Paul Hood. That was something he did not want to do right now.

  Especially when he could still do his work out here and let the mechanized odor of the parking lot transport him to another time and place. To a point in his life when he had the best team a man could have, a wife who was his devoted personal and professional partner.

  Maybe that was why Paul Hood did not understand the bad judgment call he had made. He never had an Yvonne in his life. He did not understand the meaning of partnership. Maybe that was why Herbert had judged Hood so harshly. Because he did have that perspective.

  And here, in the breezy quiet, where memories took form in the dark shadows beside the buildings, he had her still.

  FORTY-NINE

  Washington, D.C.

  Wednesday, 6:06 P.M.

  Darrell McCaskey never thought he would be grateful for rush hour.

  The highway was clogged in both directions as he picked his way through the slow-moving traffic. Herbert kept him posted on Lucy’s progress. The two cars were converging, albeit slowly. As a precaution, McCaskey called Detective Howell to have someone go to Lucy’s apartment. He wanted to make certain she was not there, that the person in the car was not a decoy. Howell dispatched a squad car without comment. His emotional neutrality was not surprising. It would not have served his cause to challenge the request or to attach it to demands or guarantees. The detective was still a professional.

  As McCaskey got onto 95 heading east, he was informed that Lucy’s apartment was empty. She was almost certainly in the car. A minute later, Herbert came back on the line.

  “You’re about two klicks shy of her position,” he said. “If I can make a suggestion, she has no more exits between where she is and your current position. You can get out of the car and cross the guardrail north of Springfield—”

  “I know the place,” McCaskey said. “I can see it ahead.”

  The car was moving a little less than twenty-five miles an hour. He looked into the oncoming traffic as he hooked the phone on his belt. He left the line open.<
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  “Maria, I’m going to intercept Ms. O’Connor and get her to pull over,” McCaskey said. “We’ll wait for you on the shoulder. I need you to get off at the next exit and swing around.”

  “You are assuming she’ll stop,” Maria said.

  “She will,” her husband said. “If she doesn’t brake willingly, I’ll stop the car in front of her.”

  “What if she’s armed?” Maria asked.

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut tight,” he replied.

  Maria frowned disapprovingly. “With a gun, not a hypodermic.”

  “I’ll watch myself,” McCaskey assured her. “Crossing the highway will be the tough part.”

  McCaskey did not usually crack wise in situations like this. Something about Maria’s gravity had touched and amused him. This was not like Madrid, where they had been former lovers as well as grumpy and reluctant allies. This was not even like the stakeout for Ed March on Monday morning. This was the first case they had worked together since getting married. Maria was showing concern. He had wanted to try to minimize that.

  He kissed her cheek as he put the car in park and opened the door. Maria maneuvered herself over the armrests and took the wheel. McCaskey ran in front of the car and waved an arm as he scooted across two lanes of traffic. Cars braked and horns whined. He swore as he reached the guardrail. The Mustang was about five hundred yards ahead, in the passing lane. He saw the passenger’s side. She was traveling about twenty miles an hour, then suddenly stopped. McCaskey hoped that Lucy had not heard the commotion and saw someone coming toward her. He did not want her trying to get away on foot. She would have a considerable head start.

  “Darrell, can you hear me?”

  McCaskey snatched the phone. “Yeah, Bob!”

  “We’re getting a thermal spike from the DSP,” he said.

  “Meaning?” McCaskey asked just as he heard horns in the oncoming lane. Cars around the Mustang were stopping. “Never mind,” he said. “I can see it. She torched the damn thing!”